While trying to hack the PS4 in order to make it run Linux (in a bid to get Steam and possibly other programs running on the PS4's hardware), hackers hit a snag: they couldn't get the PS4's GPU to display any kind of output or process any kind of graphics. Like any good researcher would, when hit with a snag, the hackers turned to scouring the Internet in hopes of finding any kind of documentation that could help them harness the PS4's Pitcairn-based GPU.
Their first stop, the Linux Radeon graphics driver source code, proved unusable: being incomplete, it makes any full picture impossible to attain. They kept digging, and as they did, someone eventually stumbled upon one of those websites that are just floating about the internet, in which they found a register reference for AMD's Bonaire GPU. Essentially, this works as a sort of bible for GPU functions and register access, and how to engage them. With this, work can finally be done regarding the PS4's previously non-cooperating GPU so as to make it display and process Linux (and any other programs running over it) that the hackers want.
This means that, given time, Linux on the PS4 is almost a certainty, with all that entails. Granted, the registers are for AMD's Bonaire GPU, not for the PS4's Pitcairn (and one also has to take into account the custom nature of the PS4's chip, with it not being a pure Pitcairn), and some registers are certainly still unknown (and thus inaccessible), yet having access to some of those functions is still better than being unable to access any of them at all. Add to this the fact that AMD's GPUs are so widespread (through gaming consoles, laptops, and PC's), and the fact that AMD's architectures (both pre and past-Bonaire) share many similarities, and the importance of this finding for this and other potential hacks can not be stressed enough.
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